The agent that had answered the phone called out to him. “Mr. Crow, we’ve got a trip wire in Ada, Oklahoma.”
There were a few men under his command capable of drawing spells. He’d had them out tagging specific locations with magical wards. He didn’t like having question marks on any of his flags. They’d warded homes, schools, friends, family, that sort of thing, and if a powerful enough Active got close, it would set off the alarm. It had been an expensive long shot, but a few of the trip wires had paid off so far. Crow checked the map. Gold flag. Question mark. “The Traveler?”
“Confirmed.”
“Excellent.” For her, he’d had trip wires placed at a burned dairy farm in California, the remains of the Stuyvesant mansion in Mar Pacifica, and what they believed was the shack she’d grown up in. This one was very important to the boss, probably in the top five most important Actives out there. She needed to be taken alive.
OCI was still a small agency. That would change soon enough, but for now his resources were rather limited. He had no men in Oklahoma City. He was hesitant to involve the locals: first, they could be untrustworthy and it was too early to risk developing a backlash against the OCI’s authority; and second, from what his intelligence said about the Traveler, she would slaughter anyone that took her on without a nullifier. The team in Dallas had one of the precious Dymaxions, but he didn’t want to risk letting her escape by the time they could get there.
“Dispatch the team in Dallas.” On the other hand, she was less than a thousand miles away from OCI headquarters as the crow flies. That turn of phrase made Crow chuckle. He could be there himself in a few hours, and have enough Power to spare to use his single greatest weapon. It would be incredibly draining, but if he caught the Traveler, it would be worth it. “They’ll take care of detainment and transport. I’ll handle the Traveler personally.”
Ada, Oklahoma
Faye was off doing who knew what. That was the hard part about being assigned to follow a Traveler. There really was no way to keep up. The other two Grimnoir had no idea what was really going on and were busy having the car towed into town for repairs. Volunteering to find their group lodging had given the final knight an opportunity to do some investigating.
The knight’s orders had been simple: find out if Faye Vierra really was the Spellbound. How to do that had been left up to the knight’s discretion. The original plan had been to observe Faye’s behavior and abilities, but when they’d left the Minotaur, a new opportunity had presented itself.
Talking the others into taking this particular route had been easy enough. Luckily, Faye had kept her mouth shut about her connection to the area. All of the information that had been gathered by the elders had indicated that the girl was ashamed of her upbringing. The knight had hoped that stopping here would have agitated her enough to ascertain if she was, in fact, the one they were waiting for. When they had not stopped, the knight had been forced to sabotage their car. Perhaps if they were forced to stay for a while, Faye would provide some clues. Unfortunately, that’s when the Traveler had run off like a spoiled brat.
Why do these assignments always have to be so difficult?
One of the signs seen along the walk back into Ada had given the knight an idea. As a rule of thumb, when an alternative method of investigation presented itself, it never hurt to check it out, even if it was a long shot. This time the knight had been in luck. There was only one doctor still residing in the dying town, but he had been there for a very long time.
Doctor Lincoln was an ancient man, who insisted on going by ‘Doc.’ He was a gregarious sort, and happy enough for pleasant company that he was not even slightly suspicious about the line of questioning. The knight had found him in his office, reading a big-city newspaper that was several days old. After purchasing some headache powders, the knight had struck up a conversation about Ada, and what, if any, interesting things the good doctor had seen during his many decades working there. A few interesting diseases, several horrific farm injuries, a large fire, and then the inevitable outbreaks of sickness as a result of the dust storms. The knight pretended to be interested until the subject could be turned back on point.
“Fascinating… Lucky for these people to have a doctor of your skill. You seem very experienced. Have you ever had any cases relating to magic?”
“Why, yes. A few. Back in oh-nine the Hickmans had a boy with superstrength. He ran off and joined the circus. One of the Ebert kids was an Icebox. Amazing thing. Poor child was crushed in a farm accident. Then there was the McCullum girl around the same time.”
The knight leaned forward until the chair creaked. “What did she do?”
“Oh, she was quite the rabble-rouser as she got older. Always managing to get into the oddest places and predicaments. Strangest and cutest little thing. She belonged to this backwards family, real poor, working scut land so nasty even the Indians didn’t want it. They didn’t come into town too often, had all their babies at home, too poor to hire a midwife, let alone having any trust in medicine, but the father came into my office one day, all shook up. He said that their daughter’s eyes had turned funny all of a sudden.”
“Funny?”
“Grey. They turned grey. They actually glowed a little in the dark if you looked at them just right. Turned out that the girl was a Traveler! Can you believe it?”
“Those are scarce,” the knight agreed. Now they were getting somewhere.
“Indeed. I tried to comfort those poor parents, telling them what a miracle this was for them, but they’d have none of it, the superstitious fools. I especially remember, because I consulted a journal article about the physiological aspects of Actives when they brought her in, but since the entry on Travelers was incorrect, I had to write the journal a correction letter.”
“What was so different?”
“It said that though Travelers didn’t begin to exercise their abilities until their brains were more formed, all known Travelers had the grey eyes even at birth. This child had blue eyes, then one day- bam — grey and shiny as could be.”
What luck! This could be it. “Do you happen to know what date this child’s eyes changed?”
“That’s an odd question,” Doc Lincoln replied.
“I’m a student of astronomy,” the knight answered quickly. “I would be curious if there would perhaps have been any peculiar alignments of the stars or planets that day that could have caused such a thing.”
“Huh? Well… Hadn’t ever given that much thought.”
“It is a more recent line of thinking on the possible origins of magic,” the knight lied.
“That’s interesting. Makes about as much sense as anything else I’ve heard.” Doc Lincoln got up from behind his desk and shuffled over to a bookshelf. He scanned down the spines. “I kept the issue they printed my response letter in. Only thing I’ve ever had published in anything more prestigious than the local paper, back before it folded up of course. Let’s see…” He pulled out one of the thin journals and opened it to the front. “Here it is… Blah, blah, blah. I was long winded as a younger man. Let’s see, the child’s symptoms appeared on September 18, 1918.”
It was a date that the knight could never forget. There was the answer.
“Oh, would you look at the time,” the knight said without looking at any clock. “I really must be going. It was a pleasure, Doctor.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He slid the journal back into place. “And remember, don’t take too much of that powder at once. With your delicate complexion it could cause blemishes.”
The knight politely escaped the doctor’s office and headed for the only boardinghouse still open in Ada. Rooms had already been rented for the evening. The proprietor greeted the knight politely, as there was far too little business these days. There was a single washroom with a full length mirror, but luckily the door had a lock. The communication spell was hastily prepared.
The elder that had given this particular assignment materialized on the other
side of the glass. When the elder saw who was calling, deep lines of worry appeared on his face. “Is it so? Is she the one?”
The knight spoke carefully. Lives were at stake. “Yes, Jacques. I have confirmed that her eyes turned Traveler’s grey on September 18, 1918.” Only a handful of people knew about the dangers of the Spellbound, which was one of the reasons this knight in particular had been chosen. “During Second Somme.”
“The day Warlock died…”
“As feared, it was not destroyed. The spell never left Earth. It chose her. I am certain Faye is the Spellbound.”
“I prayed this day would never come.” The elder looked away, distressed. There were some hard decisions to be made. “The other elders are hesitant. They wouldn’t dream of hurting this girl. You and I however, we know better… We have seen what she is destined to become with our own eyes.”
“I will do what I must. I understand the consequences far better than they can. What would you have me do?”
He hesitated. “For now, wait. Stay close to her. I will bring you new orders.”
In other words, don’t kill her- Yet.
Faye felt a whole lot better after burning down the house, like a great big weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Being careful to make sure nobody saw her Traveling, she popped back over to Ada and found their automobile being worked on in the shop. When she asked what was wrong, the nice mechanic said that it was the darndest thing he’d ever seen an engine do, and then he used a bunch of mechanical words that Faye didn’t understand to try to explain why. She still didn’t grasp it, so finally he explained that some important part had simply got real hot and melted, which it didn’t normally do, but that he’d have it replaced in no time.
The mechanic told her that her friends had gone over to the local boardinghouse to get supper. He gave her directions, and said to tell them that they would be able to leave tonight if they wanted, but that they were probably better off sleeping here and leaving in the morning. The winds tended to get worse at night and that was a fool’s time to try to drive across the wastes.
Faye decided to walk to the boardinghouse. It wasn’t far. Ada had changed a lot, but not for the better. It was a ghost town, only some of the ghosts hadn’t realized it yet. Most folks had given up and moved on, but the stubborn or desperate were still here, scraping out a living in a place that had been ruined by magic. There weren’t very many businesses left either. The seed store had burned down, but it wasn’t like anybody would miss it in a place where nothing could grow. The wind had eaten the paint off of the buildings, giving everything a worn-out and faded look. Only a few people were out and about, and there were only a handful of beat-up cars on the dusty street.
Some children were playing baseball in the road. They were all barefoot, the ball was a rock, and the bat was a stick. The pitcher was probably the oldest, maybe twelve, and judging from his broken front teeth he’d stopped a few flying rocks with his mouth. He quit smiling when he saw her. The game stopped and the players watched her as she walked by. She was an outsider, and therefore interesting and suspicious.
A woman was coming down her porch, wiping her hands on an apron. She shouted into the road. “Hey, you kids best get on home. Gonna be a real howler tonight.” The kids scattered like she was somebody they were used to taking orders from. Then she saw Faye and smiled. “Well, howdy, missy.”
“Ma’am,” Faye dipped her straw hat in greeting. Faye realized that this woman was familiar. She was the schoolteacher, not that Faye had been allowed to go to school, but she had been jealous of the kids that had. The schoolteacher lady had always struck Faye as kind when she’d seen her around town. Faye was thankful for Whisper’s big dark glasses, because surely the teacher wouldn’t recognize her. “Evening.”
“Good evening to you, stranger.” The teacher cocked her head to the side. Like everybody that still lived in Ada, she looked dried out and sunburned. The wind was blowing her ponytail around. “We don’t get many new folks in Ada.”
“Our car broke down,” Faye said, keeping her head down.
“Breaking down is the way of things around these parts.” The teacher was curious, like Faye reasoned all good teachers probably were. “You look familiar. Have you been around before?”
Faye quickly shook her head no and started walking.
“Now hold on.” Ingrained manners forced Faye to stop. “You got a place to stay, honey? Because I think it’s gonna be a hard one. You don’t want to get caught outside on a storm night. It’s liable to peel your skin off.”
“We’re at the boardinghouse, ma’am.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” The teacher was trying to get a better look at her face. “That’s a nice place. You staying long?”
“Passin’ through.” Faye realized that the lady was trying to remember where she’d seen her before. In fact, she was trying to get a look at her eyes… Faye reminded herself that she needed to think like a proper fugitive. It was time to get out of here. “I best be going. Evening, ma’am.”
“‘Bye then.” The teacher nervously put her hands together. Faye had made it nearly to the corner when the woman shouted after her. “You know not everybody here blames the wizards!”
Faye froze. She knew. “What was that?”
“I’m just saying… The wastes. The drought. Some of us know they were trying to help when they broke Mother Nature. The wizards were just doing what they were told. Not all magic people are bad.”
“I hear most of them are regular folks,” Faye answered.
“It wouldn’t be right to be angry at somebody that didn’t do nothing wrong to begin with. Not right at all.” Suddenly embarrassed at saying so much, the lady turned and walked quickly up her porch. “Have a safe journey, child.”
Faye waved goodbye.
A block later, she found the address that the mechanic had given her. There was a sign in front of the old two-story home, but the wind had eaten all the words off. A nice old lady with blue hair answered the door. The way she squinted so hard told Faye that she was mostly blind, and by the way she shouted all her words and kept saying “Eh?” she was hard of hearing too, but she eventually ushered Faye inside. The other knights were eating supper in the plain dining room downstairs. There was a pot of stew in the middle of the table. The smell made Faye’s stomach rumble embarrassingly loud.
“Look who decided to grace us with her presence,” Ian said. “What’ve you been up to?”
“Burning something,” Whisper suggested. Of course, Whisper was a Torch. Her strange fire magic had probably told her what Faye had doing. Whisper wrinkled her nose. “You smell like smoke.” Or maybe not.
Faye was embarrassed. “I had some things to do. See, I grew up near here…” She crossed her arms nervously. Being recognized by a local made her feel stupid. “And, well…”
“It don’t matter.” George got up and pulled out a chair for her. “I’ve been doing this for twenty years now and I’ve yet to meet a knight that didn’t have some things they didn’t feel like sharing.”
“Thank you.” Faye sat down. The old lady brought her a bowl and spoon, shouted a few questions about if the stew was good or not, said “Eh?” and cupped her hand over her ear when Ian tried to answer that everything was fine, and then shuffled back into the kitchen. “She seems nice.”
“Anytime a proprietor is willing to serve me without making a scene,” George said, “I’ll take it.”
“She’s blind as a bat and deaf as a stone. She probably thinks you’re white as snow. When everybody’s equally blurry, you don’t discriminate,” Ian said. “On the bright side, that means we can talk business.”
“The car is almost done. We can leave tonight if we want,” Faye reported as she scooped herself some stew. “The winds get worse at night, and if it’s bad you can’t hardly see until you drive into a ditch.”
“I say we leave in the morning then,” George said. “Did he say what was wrong with it?”
“Some doo
hickey melted,” Faye said between shoveling stew into her mouth. It was mostly potatoes and carrots, flavorless, like they’d been buried for quite a few seasons and then boiled until they were chewable. “What about Lance and them?”
Ian seemed cranky as usual. “Last we heard, they’re hunkering down for a bit, so they won’t miss us for another day. They made a real mess with the Iron Guard. Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll be asked to do something useful instead.”
Faye was tired of his negative attitude. “You’re not going to be happy until I Travel your tongue someplace without the rest of your head, are you? What is your problem?”
George tried to intercede. “Now, you two-”
“My problem?” Ian raised his voice slightly. “I think this is a wild goose chase. We don’t know that this creature of yours is even real. Knights have stooped to consulting with Iron Guards! No good can come of that. Meanwhile, our organization is being slandered and our members arrested-”
“And what do you propose we should be doing about that?” George asked with the utmost calm.
“Find out who framed us!”
“Others are working on that. We’re-”
Ian cut him off. “We’re scared of what the answer is going to be if we poke too deep. Japan, Russia, and a dozen other nations have used every excuse in the book to enslave their Actives. You think America is different?”
George’s expression barely changed, but a little bit of anger crept in. “My father was born a slave. You really want to get all preachy at me?”
“Are you nostalgic for the institution then?” Ian furiously pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “Because mark my words, Actives will be property if we don’t fight back now. We have to assert our place before we’re trampled into history.”
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